Wheat – A Nutritional Myth

Some folks say he made the leap off the deep end of the crazy pool when Dr. William Davis said the health care profession is, “Treating chronic wheat consumption.”

Dr. William Davis, author of Wheat Belly has made his mark on how millions of people see wheat. As a coronary heart disease doctor he took action in preparing his patients for surgery. He says when he took his patients off wheat, to strengthen their systems in preparation for surgery, the results were astounding. Their pains were gone, diabetes gone, psoriasis gone, colitis gone, blood pressure was way down, they encountered weight loss, depression was gone as well as arthritis, rashes, and inflammatory diseases. Asthmatics were having no issues, rheumatoid arthritis, paranoia, anxiety, auto immune diseases, pms and migranes were all becoming non-existent. Other challenges that disappeared were joint pain, binge eating, bulimia, intestinal destruction, irritable bowel, acid reflux, auto immune diseases, food obsessions, and bowel urgency.

Davis calls wheat lethal, a deadly poison for many people. He says some people can eat it and encounter relatively no issues but for others it’s highly problematic.

Since 2004, Davis has served as Medical Director of The Heart Disease Prevention and Reversal Program, Track Your Plaque, an international meeting-of-the-minds to generate a collective effort to find better solutions to the scourge of heart attack and heart disease. He is not just a man with credentials, he’s a man who says reduction of fats and the push to eat healthy whole grains is, “The largest dietary blunder ever made on an international scale.”

Whole grains, by definition, contain all three parts of the kernel: the bran, the endosperm and the germ. The government food pyramid tells us 60% of our diet should be wheat or grains. Davis says, “There is a germ of truth in this whole grain disaster: Whole grains are indeed healthier than white flour products–just as filtered cigarettes are healthier than unfiltered cigarettes.”

In the 70s wheat underwent a powerful transformation from a 4.5 foot tall plant to a 2-foot tall semi-dwarf, “Genetic variant now sold to us in the guise of ‘healthy whole grains’,” according to Davis. He blatantly says, “It isn’t wheat.”

photo courtesy of thinkprogress.org

Legally it is not a GMO because wheat has not undergone gene splicing. Instead multiple crossings, back crossings, embryo rescue, chemical mutigenesis, gamma rays and x-rays were used to alter the plant increasing the yield ten fold. Davis says this process is, “Far worse than gene splicing.”

The inventor of this new high yield disease resistant wheat was Norman Ernest Borlaug, a microbiologist scientist who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his creation. At the time they thought it would end world hunger. Borlaug has been commended for his contributions to science and his ability to influence political policy for the good of the people.

Borlaug is known as the father of the Green Revolution. In his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech Borlaug said, “It is true that the tide of the battle against hunger has changed for the better during the past three years.”

At the time of his death he was one of only five people who won what is considered the highest awards of honor: the Nobel Peace Prize (1970), the Presidential Medal of Freedom in (1977), and the Congressional Gold Medal (2007). In addition he was honored with the National Medal of Science in 2005.

At the time of his death he was commonly referred to as the man who “saved more lives than any other person who has ever lived.”

Nobel Prize winners, known as laureates, are awarded a gold medal, a diploma and money. In 2012 the financial reward for winning the prize was $1.2 million.

Borlaug died on September 12, 2009, from complications with cancer. He was 95 years old and died in his home.

Dr. William Davis says, “The unexpected results I witnessed in my heart disease prevention program led me to believe that (illness from wheat) applied to more than my patients and online following. This was a widespread societal problem. It became clear that ‘wheat’ consumption was responsible for an incredible amount of the human illness, obesity, and suffering we are all witnessing on an unprecedented scale. So I wrote Wheat Belly.”

This article is written from a presentation I was asked to give at the Weston A. Price, Debunking Nutritional Myths Conference, in the spring of 2013. This is part 1 of 4 on Wheat.

I don’t buy the arguments about wheat being bad or so called “modern” wheat being particularly bad (save for Clearfield wheat and any GMO wheats that are not in production yet). I did list some of my pro wheat arguments on the WAPF FB page a few days ago.

There are some people sensitive to gluten and certainly those with celiac disease. But it isn’t the wheat (or gluten) per se that are making us sick. There’s something else. I did reference an article talking about the lack of breastfeeding as a potential cause of this problem.

kristin i’ll have to check out your comments on the WAPF page, i dont know if i saw them. yes, i agree with you, not all food is food-ish. dr natasha says it’s more of a leaky gut response than anything – she sites a study on rats: two groups, one gets fed high dose antibiotics, then both groups fed mercury. both groups were dissected and the group fed antibiotics showed over 90% mercury toxicity while the ones with healthy gut flora showed less than 1% mercury toxicity. i wonder if it falls under these parameters?

3) Wheat breeding, until very recently (5 years or less) has been traditional. “Short” wheats ARE old wheats, from Russia. I agree that Clearfield wheat, created by exposing wheat embryos to toxic chemicals, may be an issue as would be GMO wheat if it were widely available. They are not so I do not buy that “modern” wheats are an issue.

4) A recent study linked from the WAPF FB page showed that “old” wheats like Kamut STILL caused problems for those with real gluten intolerance. So much for “modern” vs. “ancient” wheats.

5) When the Wheat Belly author and others claim that they heal many health issues by the elimination of wheat, he does not make any distinction on quality. We don’t buy this argument about real, raw milk, why do we buy it about wheat?

7) OTHER grains cause issues, barley, oats, etc, but are not demonized like wheat. These grains have been equally hybridized over the years.

I will argue it is a) the inclusion of other crap in modern wheat products, b) the use of non traditional baking methods, and c) and the lack of living, fermented, bio active foods in our diets that cause these issues, NOT the wheat itself.

oh gosh that is a good thread with a lot of information to chew. for us, we have issues with all grains including oats, barley, etc. I’ve read the depth of damage in the intestinal track determines what a person can and can not tolerate. I think we are all wonderfully fearfully made but if we are eating food-ish items, not nourishing items, our system will eventually be compromised. I know people who take one bite of wheat and immediately have an issue, like my son. I know others who take a bite and the issue is mild but builds up over time and lasts for two weeks, like myself. It’s my opinion we all need to use the brain the good Lord gave us and determine if something is healthy for us or not. In the end I have been driven for information through sickness. I can only speak for myself and quote what others have found and hope it helps someone else seeking to uncover their challenges. Love your comments Kristin!